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Sunday, 17 May 2015

New Game Same As The Old Game

Well, I am officially bored to tears with current 'content'. I cannot bring myself to do one more round of Garrison chores. Individually they take little time, but multiple that by 9 and it eats up most of a session and all of my enthusiasm. So I'm done. Combine that with the arrogance that is Blizzard, the lack of story progression, the machete job that was done to professions, the glacial pace of development, and it makes things rather grim.

There is the allure of Tanaan Jungle of course, but then there is also Timewalker Dungeons and Mythic Dungeons. So, we have a little bit of new and a whole lot of old. Since the entire theme of this expansion seems to have shifted to "either sit in this Skinner Box for 2 years or go do old content which we will wrap in a red ribbon so you idiots think it's new", I'm going one better and I'm going to sit in old content.
I'm taking the whole damned crew back to Azeroth proper and I'm not leaving until it's done. Then I'll move to Outland, then Northrend, and so on. I don't give a shit about 6.2, and I'm not doing it. I'm not collecting Garrison Resources. I'm not doing Follower missions. Yet.

Since Blizzard has taken the line of wrapping of the old expansion into the Battlechest when they release a new one, and bump all old account up, I'm going to take advantage of that, and I'm never buying another xpac again. Once 7.0 is released, WoD will be part of the Battlechest. Once 8.0 is released, 7.0 will be part of the Battlechest. So I'll play WoD again in late fall 2016 when 7.0 is released, and I'll move on to 7.0 in late fall 2018 when 8.0 is released.

This way I can play a full expansion that I know will not have any more content buffed, nerfed or removed since it will be old content and they won't muck with it anymore. I will also get to truly play for free. Sure I won't get the xpac CE mount or pet, but so what. I already have more mounts than I ever ride, and pets are a dime a dozen. I'll never collect them all anyway since I don't PvP or Arena and I don't buy TCG stuff and I've missed out on Blizzcon and promo shinies.

So the obvious question is "Why play if I'm not going to play current content?". Well, I still love the art and the music. Blizzard does world creation very very well. I sometimes think the artists at Blizzard must go on long crying jags when they see what Dev does with the worlds they have made. I also enjoy the story and the quests, so there is that.

I'm going to stop reading the forums. There is nothing there that makes me happy. The tone and content make me angry either because I agree with everything they say, or because the poster needs to be removed from the gene pool before they pollute it further. The CMs contribute nothing of substance, and only ever post in 'I'm naming my dog Zaryhm' types of threads.

I'm also not going to read Blizzard Watch anymore. I don't want content spoilers, and they take fault with Blizzard so rarely that I just can't take them seriously. They blow entirely too much sunshine up Blizzard's ass. There are a few blogs I will still follow as the authors have proven themselves capable of critical thought and analysis and/or are entertaining.

By avoiding all hype, PR, spoilers, and discussion about the game, I might actually be able to enjoy it again. I can progress at my own pace, not being concerned about getting X done before it's removed. I can enjoy not getting angry about X never having made it from being an announcement into an actual place or feature in the game because I never heard about X in the first place.

It's a win-win-win situation. Play for free, play a complete expansion it it's final form, play at my own pace.

I will take vacations from time to time, and I've picked up LotRO again. It's a different style of RPG, and I enjoy the differences. Also summer is imminent and sunshine beckons. So while I did try for a bit to post weekly, the best I can offer is likely twice a month.

If you'd like to get in touch, you can find me on twitter @EccentricaJones or email eccentrica@teksavvy.com.

2 comments:

Good for you. Just finding a way to play that you enjoy and not worry about what everyone else is doing is definitely the way to go.

As I suggested to you earlier. Just go completely cold turkey on Draenor. Delete every single Draenor items in all your bags, and delete all your Garrison Hearthstones. Go back to Pandaria and get all the farms set up. It's a shame you can't downlevel all your characters to 90, but capping XP and not getting any new levels will have to wait for the new expansion.

I could also suggest not playing any characters > 90 at all, and just play your 90s (with capped XP) and below, if you want.

Well, all my Draenor stuff is banked till I go back in the Fall of 2016, and the hearthstones are deleted. Loads to do before I get to Pandaria, though.

I don't think I'll ever have to lock xp. The sub 100s can get to 100 via other content, I don't really care about that. I won't have to lock once 7.0 hits either since my accounts won't be autoupgraded to 7.0 till 8.0 drops and without the upgrade I won't have access to levels beyond 100.